kokorojyoubu
by Yui Miyamoto
Summary: Aya stares out the window and describes his inner war over his own life…


**Fandom: Weiss Kreuz  
Title: kokorojyoubu.  
Pairing: Aya + Omi  
Description: Aya stares out the window and describes his inner war over his own life****…**

**Disclaimer: Weiss Kreuz isn****'****t mine. It's by Koyasu-sama and Co. ^_~**

I don't know how everyone else felt, but I knew why I liked to touch the flowers, even though they pricked my fingers from time to time. Silently, I would voluntarily touch them with the gentleness that I thought had erased itself from me like dust floating away from chalk as it stuck onto a green school board.

Flowers, no matter how much you shadowed them, would grow towards a source of light. Whether it was through the sun or an artificial illumination, it would follow that light, as if seeking its very own truth in the world. Even though it couldn't speak or leave to go wherever it pleased, it chose to grow as it wanted.

Why, it seemed to me, did the simplest of living things know what some humans couldn't or didn't want to understand?  
**  
kokorojyoubu.  
by miyamoto yui  
**  
Carelessly, I slipped my long coat onto the ground.

Even though it was "over" in name and in phase, could it have been really counted as such? As I put my hand on the curtain before me, I held onto it as I looked out the window. I didn't want to step out onto the balcony even though I was already drenched with sweat.

I needed to open the room for some kind of ventilation, but I just stood there not doing a thing. I just looked out onto the scattered candles of light that seemed to project from random areas of the city. Everything looked so dim.

Even though it was the middle of the night, I felt like things were silenced in a dead, never-ending picture show. The movie was playing before me. There were all these extras, who probably starred within their own kinds of movies. We played a role anyway. I sometimes felt like I was in a videogame at the way things seemed to lead from one thing to another without stopping. The plot thickened, but it seemed never to run out of things to throw out at me, like screwballs from left field in a baseball game.

A fog had come over the city and I was only too happy to receive it. I didn't know why, but I wanted that more than rain at the moment.

I sighed as I took off my gloves and changed into a tank top and pants. Then, I looked out the window again.

My sister and Sakura-san were doing well at the flower shop and I was only too happy to watch over them.  
But even though I "vanquished evil" every night, the question that was ever present to me was: Did I have such a privilege to do things like this?" Someday, I knew that it would lead to my undoing because I messed with nature.  
When you did something to break the natural cycle of things, there was something unlucky sure to happen. After all, life was a series of balances. Things had to even out even though they didn't seem so at the time when you wanted it to really happen.

"It'll be another sleepless night," I whispered to myself, almost not recognizing my own voice when I spoke aloud.

I usually thought about things and so I was used to the voice in my head and not the one I used to speak with.

Did I have any right to do what I've done? I didn't know, but I had to find the truth to life that I had been searching for. After taking revenge, life was empty. You came to a point of climax in the plot, but there was no script written after it. There was nothing else. Nothing else to live for when things, fortunately, were working out quite nicely.

And here I was trying to fight for a justice that I believed in. I felt that I had to protect the weak. Why? Why did I feel that I needed to do something like that? Having been in this situation before, when Weiss broke up temporarily, I became aware of the fact that I was privileged to do what was doing.  
There were many who could ignore the problems that people had. And it wasn't like I didn't care. I did, deep inside. There were many who could not do anything about where society was going.

But I could. I was given this option.

When you had the power to change life around you, shouldn t you have taken it up? It may have seemed like such a logical answer, but it was not. One life  
affected another and the cycle spread and completed.  
Some didn't want to be saved. There were even more who took advantage of the situation because they could use it for their own whims.

But was I strong enough? I may have looked intimidating, but deep inside, I knew that that was just a front. I was an emotional wreck even though I appeared to be a steel wall with an unknown alloy of some sort, as I could last through everything. Nothing was supposed to faze me, but the one thing that could kill me was my own heart.

As I always believed, love was a cliché that people loved to use as a justification to their existence.  
But did they even know what that meant? It took on many forms and many kinds of intentions. It took on many appearances, both true and false. But whatever love was, passion or dispassion, it was something that people could bet their lives over, whether they "won" or "loss".

I put my hand on the window and peered a bit closer at my own reflection. I could see nothing but the lines that made me older looking and the lips that couldn't say a word to anyone of its owner's thoughts and feelings.  
I was no different than this glass window. I always looked out. I always looked in. But I was too occupied with not letting myself become too enraptured by the seductiveness of emotions. I was clumsy and honest, but I was still scared to feel what was most human about anyone in the world.

I went out to the beach the other day and I sat on a rock while watching the tides come up closer and higher towards me. The wind was blowing furiously, but I wouldn't leave. I wanted to see how far it would go.

And as I stood here, I didn't want to leave the room. Even though I opened the balcony door, I wouldn't go outside. I just touched the glass door, wanting to cringe inside.

"It's going to be one of those kind of nights."

The kind where I would stand here until the dawn came as if time had passed so slowly as I thought on and on about things that lead from one thing to another. I didn't know why, but they came to me and embraced me so tightly that I couldn't breathe from its fervent love towards me. This feeling inside of me that wouldn't stop, and tried to kill me gradually.

Maybe I was losing my mind. I was trying to rationalize what I was doing, but of course, there were two sides to a coin; one unable to live without the other. And here I was waiting to go to sleep to distract myself from living and felt that things were dragging on.

Would anyone understand what I meant? Even though I talked to the other three, you were the only one who knew yourself the best. Only you could make your own decisions. After all, if you made another person a ruler over your own life, then what were you supposed to say once they truly took over?  
People were always so apt to blame other people and then not blame themselves in a pursuit of self-denial when they ruined their own chances for happiness.

Even though I had told Sakura and Omi what had happened, it still wasn't enough to appease me. I felt that something was still lacking in my explanations. All the facts were there. That was something everyone could have attested to, but there was something that was truly missing.

Not the depth or the way I felt or thought…  
But the details of things that went through me at the time.

Like right now. A night that felt infinite in its passing. I felt more alone than I had ever felt in my whole life.

It seemed that I would always be this way. I was trying to find a way to cover up why I got upset at certain things, why I felt that I had to act a certain way, why I always questioned what I had to do.

There was doubt. There was insecurity. These things were not uncommon. They were a part of everyone who lived.

In a way, maybe I hated myself, feeling as if I'd never get anywhere. I felt that I was running in circles. I was asking the same questions, thinking I learned the lessons the first time I discovered them. But in the end, the identical answers would always come up, making a deeper impression than before.

I turned around and stared at the door before me. I debated on whether I wanted to leave and take a walk or stay and endure my thoughts.

Even though I lifted up my leg to leave, I couldn't move.

Even though I had said what I did…

I fell to my knees and I gritted my teeth as the aching in my heart grew. I wouldn't allow myself to cry from my mental distress and the cringing pain in my heart, as if someone had squeezed it a little tighter as the minutes passed by.

I knew I didn't truly mean it. I was only too scared to give hope to someone and something.

"I don't deserve to be loved by anyone."

I don't know how to make someone happy because I don't know even know how to handle myself. Why should someone else have the burden that I must learn to elevate and understand myself first?

Shamefully, I wanted someone to reach through me. I wanted someone to ease my unsteady and confused thoughts. I needed to stop the war. I wanted to stop killing myself in my own head.

Why did I always look so strong and focused when I knew that deep inside, I was anything but that?

Slowly, like always, I picked myself up. I stood up and little by little, I reached the door. I turned the knob and went to the kitchen to get a glass of water to drink. After drinking one glass, I poured myself another cup and went back into my room. I put it on my desk and sat on my bed.

I wouldn't be able to sleep with all the thoughts that ran through my head. I grabbed my head and bent over as my eyes closed tightly. There was a pain in my heart, real and imagined, and it wouldn't go away. It kept on pushing thoroughly into me.

I knew it was there. I wouldn't let it go away because it became too familiar to me.  
Stop…stop torturing me!

Knock, knock.  
"Aya-kun?"

Even after all this time, Omi still called me that.

As my eyes rose to regard the door as if it were an alien place beyond it, I took my hands away from my head. "Yes?"  
Hesitantly, he questioned, "Can I come in?"  
"Ah."

The door opened and a burst of light came into the room, but there was no light coming from the hallway. Darkness to darkness, my eyes tried to adjust themselves to looking at the figure at the threshold to my room.

"Are you all right?" he asked as he walked towards me with uncertainty in his steps after he closed the door behind him.  
I shook my head. "You came here to ask me that?"  
He stopped. "I had a dream that you left without saying a word."  
"Isn't that childish?" I said as my eyes looked away from his. I glanced to my right side in embarrassment. "You came in here to tell me that, Omi?"

My tone was perfect. I was always so good at sounding cold and as if I was scolding everyone in the world.

Creak. He didn't say a word as he came closer towards me.

I almost wanted to shout and push him out the door, but I stopped myself. I was curious as to what he was doing.

Then, suddenly, he put his hands on my shirt and forced me to look at him. We stared at one another, eye to eye. And then, he gave me a sharp look.  
"Stop trying to always act so tough. You act like you're the only one who knows pain."

Taken by surprise, I opened my eyes a bit. I didn't know that this dream could have possibly given him this kind of reaction.

Then, his eyes began to become a dam holding back tears. I knew they were there because I felt them, in a matter of seconds, falling onto me. "I dreamt that you left and I kept on looking for you, but I couldn't find you at all. Then, someone out of nowhere said that you went somewhere far away. And no matter how much I shook him for the information, he wouldn't tell me."

"And how did the dream end?" I asked while trying to feign indifference.

"It changed to something as if it were the end of the world and people were dying. Then, as people were being taken away, I saw you in the crowd that was dying. You sadly smiled at me and said, 'Better luck next time, Omi.' Then, I shouted as I reached out to you. You held my fingertips and then you let go as you fell into an abyss.  
"And then, I told you, 'No matter what, I'll find you the next time lifetime because we can't be separated.' You just looked at me and I didn't know if you cared or not that I'd said that."

I stared at him as I sighed.

The air thickened. I couldn't ask why it was me and he couldn't tell me why he dreamt that kind of thing.

But he cut through everything. Even though he was younger, he seemed to be much clearer than me about things. He told me, "Don't ever leave without telling anyone, especially me. That's all I came here to tell you."

With that, he took a step back and turned around to leave.

I reached out to him and caught his wrist. He didn't turn towards me as his back still faced me.  
I found myself saying, "I promise."

The tenseness he had lessened. I felt he let out a quiet sigh of relief.

Then, he sniffed as he looked up to the ceiling. "You might think I'm stupid sometimes, and naive for blurting things out like a little kid. But I love you, Aya. You're more than a colleague, brother, or friend to me. I love you that much.  
"I didn't know I did until I woke up and found myself holding my breath and crying as soon as I opened my eyes. Just thinking about that dream moves me to tears and I feel all choked up inside."

As I heard all this, all the tears that I didn't know how to cry came out. They dripped to the ground from the invisible blood that always flowed away from my heart.

I pulled him to sit on my lap. I tightly held onto him from behind as I buried my face into his back. "You…

Until you told me all this right now, I never knew how much more it would hurt me if you, of all people,  
forgot about me. "

I continued to cry while shaking and holding onto him with all my might.  
He held onto my arms tightly and softly kissed them with his lips.

"No matter what the world may declare,  
No matter what people say,  
No matter what you convince yourself to think…

There is no such thing as an insignificant human being, Aya."

I wanted to believe that, but it was so hard, Omi. Especially the way we are, especially the way I am…

And, I thought…I thought that if I asked you, you would have thought that I was crazy. Just as much, I've wanted to ask you all along if I could keep you forever, Omi. And now, I know I will.

And you're letting me keep myself. My sanity and my life intact.

Filled with a small piece of hope, the pain in my chest loosened just a little bit.

"Are you sure about that, Omi?" I asked him like a little kid.  
"Yes. By your side, I've been fighting for that reason every single moment of every single day."

That was true…  
Through all the layers of confusion, it came out to something so basic and plain. All I was wanted, like every human struggling to stay alive, was reassurance.

With a smile in his voice, he concluded, "I've been trying to prove to you what you yourself have shown me, through those determined eyes that I've always admired."

Thank you.

Taking a deep breath, I kissed his back and held him. Peacefully, we stayed that way for a long while, until the dawn had come.

**Owari. / The End.**

**Author****'****s Note:** To tell you the truth, this wasn't the first fic I wanted to write for Weiss. I have another one planned. But anyways, I know that this is short, but this title had stuck with me ever since a reader had asked me, "So, when are you gonna write Weiss?" I never forgot that. ^_~ After all, as much as I lose my sanity through my writings, readers have a special place in my heart. One said she felt that we have built a connection. And I believe so. Inside, I am a shy and quiet person and am quite reserved. Looking at Aya, I was more aware of this. Like all my stories, I just wanted to say what I thought about the world. It's hard for me to say how I truly feel inside, so this is my form of hope and communication.  
So, thank you to all who read, who have read, and who will read my writings. I know that even though I am prolific and say many things, I'm still a little girl wanting to be heard. I am no different than anyone else who is struggling and screaming from the inside out. That's why I am happy to be privileged enough to even be read by you, so you can't imagine how elated I am when someone tells me, "I love you~! You're one of my favorite writers~!". I only know some of you individually, but thank you for taking your precious time to share it with me.

This is especially dedicated to you Mali-chan, Yumei-chan and Adri.

Love,  
Yui

Kokorojyoubu - reassuring, secure  
**  
Monday, August 02, 2004**


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